


Future tense

by pinkish



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Love Triangles, Multi, OT3, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25658530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkish/pseuds/pinkish
Summary: A small fix it post 15x02 because why have an unfulfilled love triangle when they can all love each other?
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/William LaMontagne Jr./Spencer Reid
Kudos: 61





	Future tense

"She's gonna want to see you too when she wakes up."

  
Will says it so matter-of-factly that it surprises Spencer a little. He realizes moments later that he shouldn't be surprised; Will knows -- and loves -- JJ more than any one else.

  
"Thanks," Spencer mumbles. He wishes he could do more to acknowledge the connection they have, through JJ, to each other, and he feels his hand twitch as if to reach for Will.

  
He stops himself.

  
He regrets stopping himself.

At some point, Will starts pacing, back and forth across the taupe carpet with a pattern chosen for its apparently soothing properties. It's supposed to blunt emotion, to make it harder to feel. If you're in a hospital, you're already feeling too much, so they make even the furniture as nothing as possible.  
It isn't helping. Each time Will's breath hitches, each time Spencer remembers JJ's confession, each time he sees the pain in Will's eyes, it sends a stab of feeling through Spencer's body.

Spencer knows the scientific name of every insect in North America but he can't name the feelings bubbling up within him and it's never made him as angry as it does now. He must make a sound of frustration because he draws Will's attention -- stops him from his interminable pacing.

  
"Sorry," Will says as he slumps into the nothing cushions next to Spencer. "JJ hates it when I pace; says it just stresses people out more."

  
"Actually," Spencer is glad to have something to contribute, "although psychomotor agitation in the extremes can be dangerous, simple acts like pacing do decrease anxiety and free our minds for problem solving. In fact --"

  
Will's laughter cuts him off, and Spencer grimaces.  
 _Not the right time or place, Spence,_ he hears JJ's voice admonishing him.

"Thanks Spence, I knew you'd get it," Will says, though his lopsided grin fades before the sentence is over.

Their thighs are touching, and the human contact is soothing.

  
The _Will_ contact is soothing, if Spencer's being honest.

  
Spencer lets his hand reach out this time and pats Will's knee awkwardly. "She'll make it. JJ's strong. She'll fight to come back to you."

  
Will looks at Spencer's hand and places his hand over it and squeezes. "She'll come back to you too," he says. "You matter to her, you know that right?"

  
Spencer takes his hand away and shoves both hands beneath his thighs, letting the scratch of old wool polyblend ground him. "I...yes." Spencer's face flames at the memory of JJ's tears when she said "I love you."

  
"Has she talked to you about--" Will starts to say something but is interrupted by the ringing of his phone. "It's the kids--" Will explains as he stands up to take the call. Spencer watches as he leaves the room, a warmth stirring in his gut that he's gotten used to ignoring.

  
That's the moment that Dr. Hsu comes through the door looking for Will, of course. But it's just Spencer here and he can't stop himself from following her through the doors to JJ's room. She's so pale and only the hiss of the ventilator let's him know she's alive, breathing.

  
"Please don't leave me. I can't imagine my life without you in it."

  
He knows he said other things, but that's the only thing he really needs to say.

  
****  
"Spence!"

  
Spencer wakes up to a hand on his shoulder. He wipes his eyes, bleary and scratchy from poor sleep, just as Will lifts him out of the chair and into a tight hug.

  
"She's awake! She wants to see you! I've gotta get the kids!" Will's happiness is bubbling over and he squeezes Spencer tight before letting go.  
Spencer stands there, unmoving for a full five seconds before the words sink in. _She's awake._  
He rushes to her room and he's smiling even before he hears her voice.

  
"Thank you for saving my life, again." She smiles, but her eyes brim with tears. "I'm so sorry, Spence," she says, her voice cracking on his name. "I never meant to hurt you."

Spencer wants to step forward, to take her hand and tell her that she can't hurt him, that knowing that she loves him makes him so full of joy it's hard to breathe, but he doesn't. He doesn't want to make a scene, to make the rejection that's about to happen feel worse. She has a family that she loves.  
"I sometimes think -- if things were different maybe we could..." JJ says this just as footsteps clatter down the hallway, Will's voice admonishing Henry and Michael to be gentle. 

  
Spencer watches the family erupt in joy and he takes a step back, unnoticed. He's almost grateful to get the call from his mother's doctor, to give him a reason other than complicated feelings -- joy mixed with sadness, delight and relief mixed with dishonorable jealousy-- to leave.

***  
He tells his mother immediately.

  
Saying it out loud hurts, but he knows better than to keep it inside. He's learned that the hard way. If you don't say it, it stays inside and makes it harder and harder to move, so even if he can't say it to anyone else, he can say it to his mom.

  
"She said she thinks about how it might be if things had been different," Spencer says to his mother, sitting across from him with her eyes bright with recognition and intelligence. She's back with him, however briefly, and he's so glad to see her smiling at him.

  
"But things aren't different." She pats his knee, and he smiles as he recognizes that this is where his desire to comfort people this way comes from. Although from her, this gesture is kind and thoughtful, a physical connection to symbolize an emotional one. Not the awkward fumbling that characterizes his knee-patting.

  
"You deserve someone who can share life with you in its entirety," she says, regret tingeing her voice. Spencer senses the lament for the life she chose not to live and he feels a surge of anger -- for her, at her, for not choosing a different path -- immediately followed by sadness that she didn't really have another option. He will not speak the same way when he faces his own death. He's tired of regretting things. His mother thinks the choices are moving on, or regret, but there's always something other people can't imagine, can't perceive.

  
There has to be another option.

***

It must be the exhaustion of the last few days, because it isn't until he locks the door of his apartment that he recalls what JJ actually said. In the moment, in his fear and his regret, he heard "I think about how things could have turned out, if things had been different," but when he runs through the memory know, with time and sleep between him and that moment, he hears the words she actually spoke: "If things were different, maybe we could..."

  
Conditional.

  
Future.

  
Not past. Not regret? Hope, maybe. Another option.  
He sits in his chair and thinks. He thinks carefully and projects himself into a future he doesn't often let himself imagine. A future where he has a place in a home, into a family he's been invited into over and over again...

  
And he thinks that maybe some things were different than they looked within his own brain.

  
This time, he moves.

  
He gets in his car and drives to JJ and Will's house. The drive is familiar, and it feels like coming home in a way that has always hurt before, because he always had to leave.

  
Correction: he _thought_ he had to leave. But he plays back the words that Will and JJ have been saying to him and he wonders -- hopes -- wishes -- that maybe he hasn't been listening.

  
He's about to ring their doorbell when he realizes that doing so would probably wake the boys so instead he stands on their front porch and texts JJ.

  
_What if things --are-- different?_   
_I'm outside, by the way_   
_Outside your home. You are home right?_

  
Oh god, what if she's in the hospital still? What if he's misinterpreted his misinterpretation and actually she wasn't saying--

  
The door opens, stopping his internal spiral, and it's JJ wrapped in a soft bathrobe, eyes red but a smile on her face. Will walks up behind her and puts a hand on her waist.

  
"They can be different, Spence, if that's what you want," JJ says, her voice barely above a whisper. Spencer doesn't think it's to avoid waking the sleeping children who are a floor and several rooms away, but because this moment is delicate.

  
JJ steps forward and pulls Will next to her. Will reaches out to Spencer with the hand she isn't holding. A moment passes and no one speaks, no one moves. Will rolls his eyes and says "The two of you are just useless, aren't you?" His words are softened by the smile on his face and the fondness in his eyes as he looks at them both. "Spencer Reid, would you like to come in?"

Spencer nods, but he only stares at Will's hand, outstretched, open and waiting for him to move.  
"We can wait, Spence. As long as you need," JJ says, but Spence can hear the giggle she's suppressing. He knows his face is red and his eyes must be doing that "spinning RAM" thing JJ says happens when he's processing too much information.

  
"I don't..." He stammers, "I don't want to wait anymore."

  
So he reaches forward and this time he doesn't feel awkward. He feels confident, sure, as he places his hand in Will's palm, as he lets Will thread their fingers together. He looks up and JJs eyes are full of tears again, but she's smiling so brightly that he can't help but mirror her expression. 

  
"Stay," she says, as she leads them into the living room. "Don't leave us, tonight."


End file.
